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Sunday, January 20, 2013

Guest post: The Trudeau Paradox (Part Two)

Part I of this
essay discussed the origins of Quebec nationalism and the desire of Francophone
Quebecers to have their province recognized as a “distinct society” within
Canada. This desire was fiercely opposed by Quebec political thinker Pierre
Trudeau, who became Prime Minister of Canada in 1968. Trudeau was seen as
speaking for Francophone Quebecers, and his critics would claim that he was
just the first Prime Minister from Quebec to impose that province’s agenda on
the rest of Canada. However, in this part we’ll see that Trudeau’s agenda was
quite different from what most Francophone Quebec thinkers were advocating.

The Trudeau Paradox, Part II: Trudeau,
Mulroney and the Constitution

Trudeau’s reforms,
including the way he implemented bilingualism across Canada and advocated for
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, were meant to undercut any sort of claim by
Quebec to its distinctiveness. He supported bilingualism on a strictly
individual basis, believing that if French was further reinforced across Canada
it would undermine Quebec’s claim to be a distinctly Francophone majority
province. Similarly, multiculturalism would make Francophone Canadians just one
of many communities of many different backgrounds that exist in Canada.
Enshrining the rights of all Canadians in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms
would further cement an overall Canadian identity, over and above any
provincial identity.[1]
He justified his support for government intervention such as social programs as
being a way to help everyone get an equal chance to make the best use of their
talents, as their circumstances were not all the same.[2]

These reforms
proved controversial in many circles. However, by and large many Canadians
outside Quebec came to accept them because they felt that it was what
Francophone Quebecers wanted, as Pierre Trudeau claimed.[3] Many
people outside Canada considered actions accepting bilingualism and French
immersion as what journalist Paul Wells called the rest of the country “bending
itself into pretzels” to accommodate Quebec.[4] When the
Quebec government began passing legislation to enshrine French as Quebec’s
official work and education language, and Quebecers voted the Parti Quebecois
into office, people in other parts of Canada saw it as an action of bad faith. They
were angered that, despite their willingness to accept official status for
French in their provinces and enrolling their children in French immersion
programs, Francophone Quebecers didn’t seem to respond to the rest of the
country’s efforts to accommodate them.[5] They
didn’t realize that Trudeau’s efforts were part of his attempt to undermine
Quebec nationalism, particularly as advocated by the Quebec government.

The irony, as
Richard Gwyn pointed out, was that Trudeau’s opposition to distinct status for Quebec
put him more in line with his predecessor John Diefenbaker’s line of thinking,
including Diefenbaker’s advocating the idea of “One Canada”, which was
obviously far more popular outside than inside Quebec.[6] Gwyn
noted that Trudeau’s individualist beliefs also meshed quite well in some
respects with those of many Western Canadians,[7] as did
the results of Trudeau’s 1982 constitutional reforms, including the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms.[8]
John Diefenbaker had also advanced his own Bill of Rights, which he considered
an essential element of his ‘One Canada, One Nation’ philosophy.[9]
Trudeau’s message came at an opportune time for many Anglophone Canadians, who
had previously based much of their conception of Canada on its connection to
Great Britain. With the decline of Canada’s British connections after World War
II, these Anglophone Canadians were now looking for a new vision.[10]

Despite his ideas
not meshing with those of most other Quebec thinkers, Quebec voters still
steadily supported Trudeau throughout the 1970s, in no small part due to the
fact that he was a native Quebecer, and ‘one of their own’, as former Le Devoir editor Lise Bissonnette put
it.[11]
However, the first referendum on Quebec separation, held in 1980, despite being
decisively won by the federalists, had the Francophone vote nearly split down
the middle.[12]
During the referendum, Trudeau had promised Quebecers a “renewed federalism”,
but patriating the Constitution without recognizing Quebec as a distinct
society was seen by many Quebec Francophones as a breaking of that promise.[13] In many
ways, the 1982 reforms fell short of the major suggestions for change, heavily
influenced by Quebec Francophones, that Trudeau had mentioned during the
campaign,[14]
and were certainly not what many Francophone Quebecers were expecting.[15]

As Claude Ryan and
Guy Laforest would later point out, the way in which Trudeau went about
patriating the Constitution was fiercely opposed by many Quebec federalists and
separatists alike, contrary to Trudeau’s claims that the majority of Quebec’s
elected politicians supported what he’d done.[16]
Francophone Quebecers turned against Trudeau after that, voting overwhelmingly
for the Brian Mulroney Conservatives in 1984.[17]
Historian Will Ferguson, who was living in small-town Quebec at the time,
recounted just how strong the support for Mulroney was.[18] Several
years later, at the height of the Meech Lake controversy, a long series of
polls noted just how much Trudeau’s influence had diminished in Quebec, and
just how little most Francophone Quebecers, including ordinary citizens,
thought of him.[19]

Mulroney
subsequently tried to address the anger many Francophone Quebecers felt by
negotiating the Meech Lake Accord with the provincial premiers. It was fiercely
opposed by Trudeau and his supporters outside Quebec, although most Francophone
Quebec federalists, including many of Trudeau’s former political colleagues,
supported it.[20]
Trudeau’s opposition to Meech Lake helped rally the opposition of many other
Canadians, such as then-Premier of Newfoundland & Labrador Clyde Wells, and
proved instrumental in the Accord’s failure.[21]

In Quebec, Meech
Lake’s failure was viewed with great disappointment[22] when it
wasn’t seen as a rejection of the province altogether.[23] Of
course, that was not what most opponents of Meech Lake meant to say. Clyde
Wells, for example, was in fact quite supportive of bilingualism, although most
of his supporters didn’t realize it.[24] As
previously noted, many Francophone Quebecers who were Trudeau’s former
colleagues had come out in favour of Meech Lake. Even a young Stéphane Dion
declared that Trudeau’s defeat of Meech was “the worst constitutional error in
the history of the country.”[25] As
recently as 2007, as the leader of Trudeau’s former party, Dion would state
that subsequent changes in Canada had given the country the “practical”
advantages of Meech Lake, but without the “symbolic” advantage these changes
would have had if they’d been passed as part of the Meech Lake Accord.[26]

In the Meech Lake
debates, Trudeau and his supporters outside Quebec ran up against the desires
of Francophone Quebecers.[27] The
fallout from Meech Lake led to the 1995 referendum, and by that time most
Canadians outside Quebec were fed up with the whole issue. Many Francophone
Quebecers had also come to support separatism, because they felt like the rest
of Canada opposed their efforts to maintain their Francophone character. It’s
been suggested that Francophone Quebecers were duped by their provincial
elites, but as Jeffrey Simpson pointed out that’s a dangerous argument to make
when you consider the disputes other provinces, such as Alberta or Newfoundland
& Labrador, have had with Ottawa.[28] Were
the people of those provinces duped by their
elites? Of course not!

Other factors
played a role as well-many Western Canadians were frustrated by what they saw
as the federal government’s exclusive concentration on Quebec’s issues, which
led to the rise of the Reform Party. Quebec was also seen as greedy and
spoiled, due to the belief that it was getting the most federal spending and
transfer payments. The controversies over Quebec’s language laws, and the Oka
crisis of 1990, furthered the image of Francophone Quebecers as racist and
intolerant. Of course, as Jeffrey Simpson observed, not much was made of the
fact that most of the rest of the country didn’t always do much to uphold the
rights of their Francophone minorities.[29]

All of this
created an ugly, self-perpetuating cycle. Francophone Quebecers saw the rest of
the country’s opposition to Meech Lake, recognition of Quebec’s distinctiveness
and its language laws as a rejection of Quebec itself. Meanwhile, many other
Canadians who saw Trudeau’s and Mulroney’s reigns as part of an unbroken effort
by Quebec to impose its agenda on the rest of the country. They also saw Quebec
nationalism as tantamount to not wanting to be Canadian, or only staying in
Canada for the financial benefits.

At the root of it
all was the Trudeau Paradox, that perception that Pierre Trudeau’s ideas were
what Francophone Quebecers were looking for, and that he was part of Quebec’s
attempt to impose its own agenda on the entire country. In fact, Trudeau sought
to impose his own agenda, one that he thought could defeat Quebec nationalism,
and one that ended up being accepted far more outside Quebec than within it,
except among perhaps the province’s Anglo-Quebec minority. Trudeau’s efforts to
defeat Quebec nationalism only left many Francophone Quebecers alienated, and
when Mulroney tried to change the situation with Meech Lake, Trudeau and his supporters
outside Quebec rallied to defeat it. When support for separatism increased up
until the 1995 referendum, many Canadians outside Quebec simply came to
conclude that nothing would ever satisfy the province.

As I previously
noted, the last few decades have made it clear that Trudeau’s efforts to turn
Francophone Quebecers away from their nationalism, and by extension to wipe out
the appeal of separatism, have not succeeded. While Trudeau claimed during the
Meech Lake debates that the younger generation of Quebecers did not want or
need any kind of distinct status in the Constitution,[30] the
results of the 1995 referendum, as well as the continued support among
Francophone Quebecers for the province’s language laws, show that Trudeau was
probably wrong about Francophone Quebecers’ opinions on their province’s
distinctiveness. Guy Laforest has pointed out that, while it might have been
easy for someone like Trudeau to maintain his Francophone character no matter
where he went, but many other Francophones might not have had such an easy time
of it.[31] In his
days as an academic, Stéphane Dion also raised this point in support of
Quebec’s language laws.[32] Nor are
Quebecers the only Francophones concerned about language. Justin Trudeau got
into trouble with New Brunswick Acadians when he suggested that New Brunswick
should abolish its separate English and French school systems and simply create
one bilingual system.[33]

It’s not hard to
understand why there’s been so much misinterpretation and confusion among other
Canadians as to why Francophone Quebecers have acted and voted the way they do.
In an extremely insightful observation, Alan Cairns noted that many Canadians
outside Quebec, both then and now, have a hard time understanding the whole
concept of “two founding peoples”, particularly when one of them is primarily
based in Quebec. Anglophone Canadians are the majority in the nine other
provinces, in addition to being a minority in Quebec itself. This makes it a
lot harder for many Anglophones to accept the whole idea of Quebec as a
distinct society, particularly since they tend to view the federal government
as the only one capable of speaking for all Canadians.[34]

The contradictory
elements of Trudeau’s policies, particularly the ones that tied into collective
group rights, also make it easier to see him as supporting a collective rights
agenda. While he supported bilingualism on a strictly individual basis, the
very nature of Trudeau’s efforts to enshrine bilingualism meant that he was
favouring the English and French languages over others. In building support for
the Charter and the 1982 reforms, Trudeau also reached out to other groups that
would have particular provisions for them in the Charter, including women’s
groups, multicultural groups and Aboriginal peoples.[35] People
from these groups opposed the Meech Lake Accord out of concern that any
recognition of Quebec would diminish the recognitions they had gained in the
Charter.[36]

One can also point
out just how confused the Trudeau policy was regarding Francophones outside
Quebec. Francophone minorities received a greater amount of federal funding for
cultural activities than did other cultural groups, something that caused an
understandable resentment among the latter, particularly when the expectation
among immigrant groups would be that they would have to learn English and
assimilate.[37]
When Trudeau came up with the idea of multiculturalism as a way of undermining
the idea of biculturalism so popular in Francophone Quebec, he had to fuse it
with bilingualism so that it became “multiculturalism in a bilingual
framework.” This was at odds with Trudeau’s efforts to establish bilingualism
across Canada, and was criticized by Francophones both inside and outside
Quebec.[38] On a
more basic level, the poor job Trudeau did of explaining bilingualism to
Canadians and his blunt indifference to Canadians’ concerns also undermined its
acceptance by the rest of the country.[39]

Thus, the Trudeau
Paradox emerged in full force. Many people thought that the differences between
Quebec and the rest of the country were irreconcilable, and that there’s simply
no way to resolve the impasse. In Part III of this essay, we’ll see that this
is not necessarily the case, and in fact Francophone Quebecers have much more
in common with other Canadians than most people realize.

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About Me

I'm a free thinking spirit with a lot of axes to grind and am not afraid to speak my mind. I know I'm not perfect but I do try to keep my head on straight while keeping an open mind. And yes ... I am still single and hating it.

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HELP ATTAWAPISKAT

Incredibly, Stephen Harper STILL doesn't want these Cree children to have a proper school like non-natives have access to. I do, and so should you. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian -- whatever the colour of their skin, whatever their religion, whatever their name.

Love: "Falling in love is awfully simple. Falling out of love is simply awful." -- allegedly said by Friedrich Nietzsche

Ideas: "You can imprison a mouse or a man, but you can never imprison an idea." --Tommy Douglas

Imagination: "An imagination is a powerful tool. It can tint memories of the past, shade perceptions of the present, or paint a future so vivid that it can entice...or terrify, all depending on how we conduct ourselves today." -- Jim Davis, creator of Garfield

Education does not (always) equal wisdom: "I'll tell you where I got my education. At Screw U." -- Dolly Parton

You think life is unfair? "This is not Burger King. You can't have it your way." -- Joni Eareckson Tada, mouth painter and evangelical leader

Doomsday Televangelists: "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia." -- Charles M Schulz, creator of Peanuts

Victory Without War: "Real peace is an illusion. It has never existed and will never exist. Real peace is not an end to conflict, but a means of living with conflict." -- President Richard Nixon

Civil Rights: "We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in the Congress, in your state and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives. It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this is a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the fact that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality." -- President John F Kennedy

On No WMD in Iraq: "A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." -- Prime Minister Jean Chrétien

Truth: "Life was much more certain behind the Iron Curtain ... The truth was always easy to identify: Everything in Pravda was a lie." -- George Bowser and Ricky Blue, comedians

Response to "My Country Right or Wrong": "When right, keep it right; and when wrong, make it right." -- John F. Kerry, US Senator

Why I am a progressive: "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." -- John Stuart Mill

Looking on the bright side of life: "I still believe in a place called Hope." -- President William J. Clinton

The bright side (Part Deux): "Yes we can!" -- Senator Barack H. Obama

On the funeral home industry: "Jesus didn't need his vault for long. I mean, He was up and out in only three days." -- Jessica Mitford, noted atheist, speaking to six funeral directors.

Why government and business are in bed together: "It is difficult for a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair

Grace in adversity: "Every time I'm on ABC, I crash." -- Vinko Bogotaj, the "Agony of Defeat" ski jumper (after he was involved in a car crash on the way to an interview to celebrate the anniversary of the infamous 1971 tumble)